Constance Cary Harrison
Constance Cary Harrison (April 25, 1843 - November 21, 1920), was a prolific American writer. She was also known as Constance Cary, Constance C. Harrison, and Mrs. Burton Harrison, as well as her nom de plume, "Refugitta." She was married to Burton Harrison, a lawyer and American democratic politician. With two cousins she was known as the "Cary Invincibles"; the three sewed the first examples of the Confederate Battle Flag. Life Constance Cary was born at Port Gibson, Mississippi,"Mrs. Constance Cary Harrison," in into an aristocratic family, to Archibald Cary and Monimia Fairfax. Archibald Cary was the son of Wilson Jefferson Cary and Virginia Randolph. Monimia Fairfax was the daughter of Thomas Fairfax, 9th Lord Fairfax of Cameron. Archibald Cary was a subscriber to the Monticello Graveyard (1837). They lived at Cumberland, Maryland, where he was editor of its leading newspaper, ''The Cumberland Civilian''. When he died in 1854, her mother, Monimia, moved the family, in with her grandmother at Vaucluse Plantation in Fairfax County, Virginia, until the outbreak of the Civil War. Civil War years After the seizure of Vaucluse and its demolition (to construct Fort Worth, as a part of the defenses of Washington, D.C.) she lived in Richmond, Virginia during the American Civil War and moved in the same set as Varina Davis, Mary Boykin Chesnut, and Virginia Clay-Clopton. She became published in Southern magazines under the pen name "Refugitta." Constance Cary lived with her Baltimore cousins, Hetty and Jennie; her mother served as the girls' chaperone. The three young ladies became known as the "Cary Invincibles." In September, 1861, they sewed the first examples of the Confederate Battle Flag following a design created by William Porcher Miles and modified by General Joseph E. Johnston. According to her own account, one flag was given to General Joseph E. Johnson, one to Confederate general P. G. T. Beauregard, and hers to Confederate general Earl Van Dorn.Constance Cary Harrison, "Virginia Scenes in '61," in 165. Later during the war, she assisted her mother as a nurse at Camp Winder. She later met Burton Harrison (1838–1904), a private secretary for Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and helped win his release from Fort Delaware after the War's end. After the war In 1865, she wintered in Paris, with her mother. In 1866 Harrison had settled in New York City. She and Harrison were married on November 26, 1867, St. Anne's Church, in Westchester County, New York; the wedding breakfast was at Old Morrisana, the country home of her uncle, Gouverneur Morris. He held various public offices, and she wrote and was active in the city’s social scene. They were the parents of Fairfax Harrison (March 13, 1869 - February 2, 1938), who was a President of the Southern Railway Company, and Francis Burton Harrison (December 13, 1873- November 22, 1957), who served as a Governor-General of the Philippines. Among her other contributions to American Literature, Constance Cary Harrison persuaded her friend Emma Lazarus to donate a poem to the fundraising effort to pay for a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty.Harrison, Recollections Grave and Gay, 314. In 1871, the Harrisons first visited Bar Harbor, Mount Desert Island, Maine, staying at the cottage of Captain Royal George Higgins.Harrison, Recollections Grave and Gay, 349. Sometime in the 1880s, they commissioned Arthur Rotch of the architectural firm Rotch & Tilden to build a seaside cottage called Sea Urchins, with a garden designed by Beatrix Farrand.http://www.coa.edu/assets/landscapemasterplan07/sitehistory.pdf The property now is owned by the College of the Atlantic, transformed into Deering Common, student center.https://www.coa.edu/html/pressreleases_572.htm Sea Urchins was the center of hospitality during the "Gilded Age" in Bar Harbor and she entertained many noted visitors there, including friend and neighbor James G. Blaine, who lived at Stanwood. The Harrison's winter home was a mansion on East 29th Street, New York. Constance Cary Harrison died in Washington, D.C., in 1920, at the age of 77. Works The works of Constance Cary Harrison include: Magazine articles and stories * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Other prose * * * * * * Produced at Madison Square theater in 1888. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Noted actress Minnie Maddern Fiske appeared in the 1901 production of this play. * * * * * References References and external links *[http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Harrison_Burton_Mrs_1843-1920 Mrs. Burton Harrison in Encyclopedia Virginia] * The Burton Norvell Harrison Family Papers at the Library of Congress * (credited as writer for the 1914 movie version of The Unwelcome Mrs. Hatch) * Find a Grave, Ivy Hill Cemetery, Alexandria, VA * Mrs. Archibald Cary (Monimia Fairfax) (1820-75), (painting) Category:1843 births Category:1920 deaths Category:American writers Category:People from Richmond, Virginia Category:Women in the American Civil War Category:Cary family Category:People from Fairfax County, Virginia